Wow! Last night was incredible. I must say, I found the entire Presidential Address to Congress to be IMMENSELY entertaining. I mean, what can I say? How often do you get to see a party behave like petulant children, unable to get their way, and therefore throwing fits DURING a presidential speech?

Oh, there was a’hooting and a’hollering.

Oh, there was a’waving of random signs and pieces of paper in the air.

And to top it off? The phrase heard around the world:

“YOU LIE!”

Boy oh boy! My Jesus, they just could NOT contain themselves!

“I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” Is this the new Republican mantra?

Now, if only they had gotten this fired up when it came to the wasteful spending that is the Iraq war! If only they had gotten that fired up when big businesses and the wealthiest people in the country were getting tax cuts left and right! If only they had gotten this upset when all of the American jobs started to be outsourced to other countries. If only they had gotten that fired up when big businesses started handing out jobs to illegal aliens, that they now want to fight against covering with American insurance. (Good enough to work for slave wages, not good enough to be treated if you get sick.) If only they had gotten that fired up when talks of deregulation began to take root. IF FREAKING ONLY!

But they didn’t.

If they had, MAYBE things would be a lot different. MAYBE, just MAYBE we would be able to actually take care of the American people when they get sick, as they do in other countries. MAYBE we wouldn’t be in this cluster f#ck economically. MAYBE there would be more jobs to go around and unemployment wouldn’t be near 10%. MAYBE we would not have lost thousands of American lives in wars that have served to do nothing more than line the pockets of the uber rich and heartless.

Maybe, just maybe.

Today it was reported that the bonuses that bank give out each year come from overdraft fees and credit card penalties. Yes, dare you spend a buck more than whats available, or you are contributing to the 27 BILLION dollars that is accumulated each year in overdraft fees. Please tell me why these CEO’s deserve my 35 bucks? Why do they deserve yours? What did they do to earn it? As far as I can tell, their entire purpose in life is to nickel and dime us every which way from Sunday. Mmm… I guess that IS worthy of such bonuses. Job well done guys!

But seriously, why is that OK? Why aren’t people picketing their offices and demanding their overdraft fees back? And better yet, how many people in America medical bills could be taken care of with that $27 Billion?

Now, there are people who say that people should learn to balance their check books. Bla bla bla. Yes, I agree that we are each responsible for our own finances. But that still doesn’t tell me why the fat cats at the banks DESERVE to get that money. Should there be a penalty for over drawing your account? Sure, but there should also be laws in place to protect you from these overdraft fees. Laws that will prevent some of the practices that cause even the most financially conservative person to accidentally overdraft their accounts. My own personal experience involves depositing checks that take days, or maybe even a full week to clear, while I still have bills that are scheduled to be paid. Might I add that they don’t tell you that there will be an hold until AFTER they process the check, and deposit into your account?

While some banks do allow you to set up a savings account to cover any overdrafts, the default should be that the bank DOES NOT cover purchases that you can’t afford. So… if you try to buy a dress that is $150 and all you have is $149 on your account, that purchase should not be approved. Instead of that, the current default is, “sure, we’ll cover your purchase that is a dollar short, but it’s going to cost ya. ” This simply should not be allowed.

At this point you may ask yourself, “but, where would those bankers much deserved (insert eyeroll here) multi-million dollar bonuses come from? How will their children eat??

You will excuse me if I don’t care, right? After all, all of the hoopla and discontent surrounding health care reform and whether or not we can really afford it rings disingenuous when practices such as these are allowed to exist.

What is it with the conservative base that has convinced them that it is a good idea to vote against their interest? Why are they concern with whether or not the private insurance company survives a public option? Do those private insurance companies care about all of the services and treatments that they DENY to people that they do cover? Do they care about the millions of people they turn away due to “high risk?” Do they care about the little person? In my, and millions of others opinion, the answer is a big fat, RESOUNDING, “No!”

So why are the conservative constituents otherwise convinced? And will they ever see the big picture? I’ve seen conservatives without jobs, without health insurance, and who are sick, fighting to stop health care reform. They’ve been convinced that they don’t deserve it.

“Why should I be so lucky? Why do I deserve to live a better life? If only I had worked as hard as the bankers, I would be able to afford treatment for my breast/colon/prostate/stomache cancer.”

What can I say? Maybe they are right. Let’s face it, if God wanted us to have a better life, He would have made us all Bankers.

16 Responses so far.

i have always hated banks. worse than lawyers and dentists. not only do they profit from simply “holding” our money, they bite the very hand that feeds with their ridiculous fees. and for some reason, the majority of america is too complacent to do anything about it. i cannot believe how many people still bank with BoA. they have continually proven themselves to be the most devious institution in the retail banking industry.

i am with a small credit union. i lucked out in getting in, as my then-employer was contracted with them for providing used cars for their loan program. it has one branch. it has no atm’s. it is only open 9-4, m-f and closed on lunch. it is most certainly the most inconvenient bank i can imagine. but i love them. they have never charged me a ridiculous fee. $5 if i overdraft? i deserve that slap on the wrist, ok. it’s not $30! they have provided all of my loans, worked with me when i was unemployed, and overcome any issue when i have called to speak with them about it.

get with a credit union as soon as you can. they deserve our support, and we deserve the quality service they provide.

Great post. I’m new here too. Welcome! Anytime I get an overdraft fee I call the bank & fight it & guess what? They usually remove it; which makes me think that it is all a farce! They just wanna see what they can get away with. Grrrr

Thanks for the welcome. I look forward to reading everyone’s blog. I started blogging because I don’t have anyone in my real world to discuss politics on a regular basis. I spend way too much time talking to the TV and the computer screen when I am reading about all this craziness. lol. I HAVE TO GET IT OUT!

Thank you. It’s already been quite therapeutic. I have my other blog on wordpress, but I don’t get many people to actually read what I say. So while it helps to get it out, it’s nice to hear feed back from people who get where I am coming from.

I am remiss for not saying great article and welcome initially. I think you have allot of insight.

There are only a few types of Republicans these days. Republicans that are rich or think they are going to be rich some day the latter is the Joe the Plumber idiot that votes against his own interests. The third type is the social conservative that does not vote on their logical self interests but on their “beliefs” even though the family values Republicans have been exposed as well.

This does not preclude the existence of many corporate Dems that are Dems in wolve’s clothing.

The best part of the regulations the white house has put together is a financial consumer protection agency that would be put together to curb the very abuses you are talking about with proper legislation. Unfortunately too many progressive are still reeling from the bailouts that they refuse to focus support even on good advances in regulations.

I really hope that the financial consumer protection agency does its job. The greedy seem to always manage to figure out a way to work around rules and regulations. They need to be held accountable. The way things have been going the last few decades, and currently, is not sustainable. People need to work and get paid living wages for the economy to be strong. If you raise the cost of everything, but don’t raise pay accordingly, how in the world can anyone afford the rise in costs?

At this point I hope it’s even formed in the first place. Of course conservatives and the chamber of commerce is fighting it’s creation. They still firmly believe in deregulation and want to fight regulations, especially regulations that help people at any cost.

I don’t know if the Repub constituents feel they don’t deserve better or any health care, I think the fact that they are more likely to be undereducated and over-religious means they are more prone to accepting what is told to them as the way things are then to use critical thinking.

Remember how outraged the poor Repubs living in trailer parks were at the “death tax” (Estate Tax, that is) for only exempting the first $3 million of their assets?

The ignorant and the hyper religious are as easy to manipulate as 3 year old children…and that’s an insult to 3 year old children.

They watch Beck or listen to Rush and it is no different than the words of their preacher telling them exactly what God thinks about them and wants them to do.

They vote against their own interests because they are scared into it or told to do so by the authority figures they have gorwn up to rely on.

This is why education reform is so important too. Properly educate the kids of these people and instead of believing that the government is planning to kill their grannies, they will use critical thinking and reasoning to discern for themselves that such a thing is preposterous.

With a well educated citizenry, there will be very few who will be so easily manipulated and very few who choose to be Republicans.

The best long term plan to get this country moving forward into the 21st Century at full alternative energy powered speed, is education.

And a pleasant byproduct will be the withering away of the GOP into cult status.

Also, thank you for your response (sorry about the typos in the post, wish I could edit it, but I can’t figure out how. lol)

I’ve always been the type of person who tries to understand irrationality. It’s not as if I am blind enough to think that any plan that comes from congress is going to be absolutely perfect, but since they are spending so much time fighting things that aren’t true, we can’t even discuss the REAL issue. We are too busy countering them on things as petty as how many times Obama said “I” in a speech. Countering death panels. No real discussion is going to take place because the republicans have no interest in changing the current health care system. It’s just all so frustrating.

If you look at the MSM and even HuffPost, the media has a huge stake in keeping the discourse as emotionally charged as possible because it means clicks on the internet and eyes and ears in the media. IOW…money.

Also, the five corporations that own all major media have other interests in keeping the public distracted from the real issues at hand.

If people recognized just how damaged our democracy is and how overpowerful corporations are, they might just rise up and press for much more severe changes to the status quo.

I’m actually very disappointed that in the wake of the economic crash, it appears that the window of opportunity to strongly reform corporate power and behavior in this country has closed. It seems like it’s all going back to the way it was before.

How can that be?

I will give Pres. Obama a bit of a benefit of the doubt, that he’s been avoiding other conflicts until health care reform is passed.

But once that happens, I sure hope to see him reforming the rest of the corporate world as his health care plan would do to the insurance corporations.

I agree. I am also giving him time to actually accomplish these big things. I get so tired of people saying that they regretted they voted for him or stating that he has already failed. How do you judge an entire 4 year presidency off of 8 months I’ll never know. Why people assume that if he fails w/healthcare that his political career is over when other presidents before him also failed at healthcare reform. It’s the expectation of being perfect that I dreaded during the campaign. I hope that he overcomes it for the betterment of our country.

We have to stop giving the banks the much of the power they have. Individuals really can do something to extract banks from their lives in many ways. Every car loan I get through a credit union. I did my mortgage with a credit union but they sold it to citi.

My main account is with an investment account with minimal fees and have replaced my credit cards with debit cards so I never pay bank interest or credit card fees. People are starting to make changes that will curb bankers greed but it won